Killed in Fringe Time Page 4

  We didn’t announce anything. Now that she had me in the bag, she was going to take her time and do everything right. As she pointed out, being an only child, an orphan, and rich, she was going to be able to get everything exactly her way.

  In that, she was a lot like Richard Bentyne.

  I started finding out about that Monday morning, having reluctantly parted with Roxanne and caught the first shuttle back at the crack of dawn. I arrived only a few minutes late, but my secretary had an especially baleful look in her eye.

  “Good morning, Jazz,” I said.

  She made a skeptical noise.

  “Look,” I told her reasonably. “I’m vice president of this department. I’m paid by results, not by the hour. I don’t have to let you bully me all the time about my punctuality. Tell you what—next time I’m late, I’ll bring a note from my mother.”

  “It’s not that,” she said.

  It wasn’t? I was astonished. “Oh,” I said intelligently. “What is it, Jazz?”

  “Mr. Falzet is in your office.”

  “In my office?”

  “That’s right. He came in person. He had a pot of coffee and two cups on a tray. He asked me very politely if he could go into your office and wait.”

  That was bad. It was also unprecedented.

  Tom Falzet was president of the Network. He was a Southerner, handsome in a big-toothed, horsey kind of way. He was one of the most honest men in the entertainment business, which I grant you is not saying a whole lot, and he did a fine job of running the Network and all its subsidiary activities.

  He was also pompous, fussy, narrow-minded, and short-tempered, and I didn’t like him.

  He, for his part, hated and feared me, mostly because of my relationship with Roxanne. Virtually all of our meetings took place in his airplane-hangar of an office, in the thirty-seventh-floor penthouse of the Tower of Babble, a place that can make a visitor feel like a Christian crossing the floor of the Coliseum in Rome. I frequently felt that way, especially since I always knew the purpose of my being summoned was to strip some hide off me.

  But today, Falzet had decided to play this game on the road. He’d even come bearing gifts. It could mean that he had me so badly, that he could fire me or worse, and not even worry about the stage setting when he did it.

  I didn’t really believe that. Not only was I not doing anything I could get in trouble for (not always the case in my job), it had been so quiet lately that I wasn’t doing much of anything at all.

  After that, I was out of ideas, so it was a completely mystified Matt Cobb who walked into his office that day.

  I’d half-expected to find Falzet ensconced behind my desk, but he wasn’t. He was sitting in the guest’s chair, waiting patiently like a good little boy for the principal to arrive.

  He stood up when I come in. He didn’t say anything about my being late. He didn’t sneer. He said, “Sorry to barge in on you like this, Cobb. I took the liberty of bringing some coffee.”

  It was surreal.

  So I acted out of character, too. Instead of asking him exactly what the hell he thought he was pulling, I told him, no, no bother at all. I even thanked him for the coffee, even though coffee gives me heartburn.

  He poured. We each fixed our own. He took sugar and cream, and so did I. I waited for him to sip first. Maybe he’d decided to poison me.

  He sipped, with no ill effects, so I followed suit. It was good coffee. Maybe during the rest of the year I’d drink eight cups of coffee instead of my usual one cup a month.

  “I’ll tell you why I dropped in on you, Cobb,” he offered.

  “I’d like to know,” I admitted.

  “I received a call this morning, quite early, from Richard Bentyne. In person.”

  Bentyne had visited me in person; he’d rung Falzet instead of having a flunky do it. This was a guy who needed to learn how to delegate.

  “He wanted to know,” the president of the Network went on, “why you weren’t here personally seeing to his safety. He was very put out.”

  “Excuse me while I choke back sobs. Did you explain to him that Special Projects isn’t in the bodyguard business? That that’s Security’s job?”

  “As a matter of fact, I did.”

  “Did you further point out that the whole thing was just a precaution, based on the off-chance that an old man who’s been talking to himself and the grizzlies for thirty-five years might not be as crazy as he acts?”

  “Well, I didn’t put it quite that way, but that was the essence of what I’d told him.”

  “And?”

  “And Mr. Bentyne is not impressed with Security. The security department of his last employer failed to deter some demented woman who kept breaking into his home in California, claiming to be his mother.”

  “I know all about that. Her name is Barbara Anapole, she’s out of the nut house in LA., and she’s come to New York. She’s stayed away from Bentyne so far, so there’s nothing anybody can do.”

  “Yes, Mr. Bentyne told me all about it. That however was not his point. He is not impressed with Security. He is, it seems, impressed with you. He would like you to spend the day at the theater, to ‘keep an eye on things.’” Falzet cleared his throat. “He was quite insistent about it.”

  “I’ll just bet he was. So I go over there today, and nothing happens, possibly because I’m so good at eye-keeping, but probably because nothing was ever going to happen in the first place. What happens tomorrow? I’ve done a lot of things for this Network, but if I have to become part of a comedian’s entourage, I quit.”

  Falzet looked at me. “What do you think of Richard Bentyne, Cobb?”

  “Just between us?” Falzet nodded. “Then I think he’s amazing,” I said. “I would have bet there wasn’t another human being in the world who could irritate me as much as you do, but he’s it.”

  Falzet laughed. It wasn’t that I’d never heard him laugh before. But this was different. This wasn’t the nasty laugh I knew so well. This one was honest and open and even friendly.

  “That’s exactly what I would have said if you had asked me,” he roared.

  Now I laughed, although it usually bothers me when people I don’t like do something human. Unsettles my prejudices.

  “What shall I do with Mr. Bentyne?” he asked.

  “Are you really asking me?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, don’t. He’s not my responsibility, and I like it that way.”

  “He seems to want to be your responsibility.”

  “That,” I said, “is his problem.”

  “Yes, and mine, too. Not that I expect sympathy from you, Cobb. It’s just an interesting dilemma. Bentyne represents a huge investment for the Network—larger, in fact, than results have so far justified. We can buy out of the contract, but the kill fee is enormous, not only for him but for his agent, and for that producer/girlfriend of his. More than we can safely afford at this point.”

  “Count your blessings,” I told him. “If he’s this snotty now, imagine how bad he would be if he were actually doing what you wanted him to do.”

  “That’s it, Cobb. His ratings and shares have been trending up lately, and of course, his demographics have always been good. He may yet get there. If he does, the income he generates will make him virtually all-powerful at the Network, the way Johnny Carson was able to dictate to NBC.”

  “Well,” I said, “if you’re hinting you want me to kill him before he gets too big, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

  “Must you always be facetious?”

  “No,” I said.

  This brought Falzet up short. He’d been expecting a wisecrack. Now he suspected I’d pulled some kind of double whammy on him and was laughing at him secretly.

  He decided to press on.

  “I was merely going to point out that it makes good sense for us to, ah, indulge him in any case.”

  “Humor him, you mean.”

  “Do I have to remind you, Cobb, that
the suggestion that Bentyne might be under threat came originally from you?

  “Actually, it came originally from Bentyne’s own private Grizzly Adams, but if it makes you feel any better, I’ll admit to buying into it. I wanted to make sure all the bases were covered.”

  “Exactly. Covering all the bases. If Bentyne does rise to de facto control of the Network, he will be well disposed toward us. If circumstances dictate a parting of the ways, no one will be able to deny we bent over backward to please him.”

  I formed a mental image of Falzet bending over backward to please Bentyne. Sell a photo of that to the Enquirer, and I’d be as rich as my fiancée. That made me decide that I wanted, for my own amusement, a picture of Falzet’s face when he learned about Roxanne and me.

  It also occurred to me that now I had the answer to Rox’s question of the other night. A good time to get married would be as soon as I got sick of working for the Network. After Falzet’s speech, that time could be any second now.

  But not quite. Not yet.

  “All right,” I said. “I’ll do it—on one condition.”

  And there was the smug, cynical smile I’d always remember him by. “Oh?” he said. “What’s that?”

  I finished my coffee, put the cup on the tray, and handed it to him.

  “Next time,” I said, “bring doughnuts, too.”

  “On with the show, this is it.”

  —MEL BLANC

  The Bugs Bunny Show, ABC

  5

  SECURITY GUARDS IN NEW YORK don’t get a lot of respect. Becoming a rent-a-cop is seen as one of those last-resort jobs people in New York take so they can tell themselves they’re actors or dancers or writers waiting to happen. Like taxi driver or waitperson, or street-vendor, the other classic tide-you-over jobs, security guarding is flexible enough to leave enough time to go to cattle-call auditions, or to sweet-talk editors.

  Unlike them, however, a guard doesn’t really get to impress the public with the fast service or snappy patter. He just stands there, checking IDs against names on an approved list, and then says yes or no.

  Of course, if you are a truly devoted undiscovered superstar, you do the best you can with what you have.

  The guy at the door of the Network’s newly acquired Bingham Theater, for instance. When we’d bought the place, we’d inherited an ironclad contract with the independent security firm that guarded the place. I’d forgotten about that until I saw the specimen guarding the stage door, now rechristened the Staff Entrance.

  I don’t know how old he was, but he looked about fourteen. He had red hair and freckles. His two-tone gray uniform was baggy on him, and he made the thirty-eight they’d given him (that was one of the pluses of the job—in ten years, every man, woman, and child in New York is going to carry a gun, because the rest will have already been shot) look like a toy simply by being in contact with him.

  A casting director might take one look at him and say “Huckleberry Finn,” but here that wouldn’t work. So Huck did the next best thing. He was small and Irish, so he decided to be Jimmy Cagney.

  I took my Network ID out of my wallet, pinned it to my lapel, and let him take a good look at it. Then I said a friendly hello to him, and started to enter.

  He jumped in front of me. “Hey, watch it. You can’t go in there.” He didn’t call me a dirty rat, but I could tell he sure wanted to.

  I took the card back off my lapel and showed it to him again. “Matthew Cobb,” I said, in case the problem here was dyslexia. “Vice President Special Projects. See? It’s even got a picture that sort of looks like me.”

  “It says here,” he sneered, “that you work for the Network. It doesn’t say anything about The Richard Bentyne Show. Nobody goes in here without being part of The Richard Bentyne Show.”

  This time, he did add, “You get me?”

  There were several courses of action open to me, a few of the more tempting of which involved physical violence.

  This, however, had been implicitly declared Official Network Bending Over Backward Day, so my voice was sweet reason as I said, “Every day, Mr. Bentyne has new guests. Surely you don’t know them all by sight.”

  Cagneyhuck eyed me suspiciously before admitting truculently, “Of course not.”

  Still calm as a man talking to a strange dog, I agreed. “Of course not. So how do all these invited guests manage to get in?”

  “I call in and check, and somebody comes to get them.”

  “Wonderful,” I said. “Brilliant plan. Would you mind doing that for me?”

  “What’s your name again?”

  “Cobb. Matt Cobb.”

  He reached into a little box on the wall behind him and got a phone. He cupped a hand around the mouthpiece as though he were reciting the secret of eternal life, or the formula for Coca-Cola, or something equally important.

  He folded his arms across his chest and stood against the door. “I called in. It’s up to them, now.”

  “I’ll wait,” I said sweetly. Inside I was seething with frustration. At the same time, I wondered at the vehemence of my own reaction. The kid was just doing his job, albeit snottily. I decided I was upset because of biorhythms, which I did not believe in, and forgave myself.

  Then the door jumped open and he staggered backward into a tall, slim woman. The cigarette in her mouth was crushed against the top of his head, and you could smell hair burning. Cagneyhuck yelped in pain, and staggered forward again through the door, holding his head and looking confused.

  “Asshole,” the woman said. Her voice said she’d been born bored, and never expected to get over it. She lit another cigarette.

  “You’re Cobb?” she asked, not impressed.

  I admitted it.

  “I’m Vivian Pike,” she said. The hand she held out was dry and bony, but strong and warm. “Why the hell didn’t you walk right in? I’ve got enough to do without playing doorman for Network busybodies.”

  “Well, excuse the hell out of me. I was under the impression that Mr. Richard Bentyne desired my presence in the worst way. If I’m wrong, I’ll apologize for distracting you, go back to Sixth Avenue, and get on with my real work.”

  Vivian Pike was about five nine, and rail thin. Her hair was coarse and yellow, and stray bits of it stuck out at odd angles. She was dressed in Early Seventies Graduate Assistant—unbuttoned denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up over a black leotard, jeans, and penny loafers on bare feet.

  She was a little older than Richard Bentyne but looked a lot older. It wasn’t wrinkles so much as pockets and bulges. She looked unutterably tired. If she’d gotten a little sleep and gained about thirty pounds, she might have been a very attractive woman.

  She had pale blue eyes. Now she rolled them heavenward and said, “Christ, another prima donna.” She turned to me. “You’re the one,” she accused, “who put the bug up Richard’s ass about his life being in danger, as if I didn’t have enough to worry about.”

  “Just making sure. Old Man Bates might not have been wrapped too tight—”

  “My God, him! Another one of Richard’s brainstorms.”

  “—but his point just couldn’t be ignored. Anyway, what’s the big deal about a couple of security men?”

  “You don’t know Richard.” She took a drag on her cigarette as though she expected to live on that lungful of smoke for a week.

  “Richard Bentyne,” she said, “is a genius. A comic genius. A television genius. He transforms the medium just by being on it. He can be up to his ears in the usual hokey bullshit yet not be touched by it.”

  Her eyes lit up, as though Richard Bentyne—no, just his talent—were the one thing in the world she cared about. It was just a brief flash of life; it died out as quickly as it came, and her voice was dead again.

  “But like a lot of geniuses, Richard is painfully aware of being different, okay? It’s made him lonely over his life, and the loneliness has made him paranoid. When he gets paranoid, he gets scared, and when he gets scared he comes r
unning to mama. And it’s hard enough just running this show.”

  She sounded sincerely griped about the whole thing. I would have felt a lot of sympathy for her if I hadn’t known that she was shacking up with the paranoid star, and that the Network was paying her a million and three-quarter simoleons a year in salary over and above what Bentyne got personally.

  It all went to show that money can’t buy happiness, because she sure wasn’t happy.

  “So you can understand why I don’t appreciate having his head filled with hysterical concerns about his safety.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, still on the polite kick. “How would you appreciate it if he got his head blown off?”

  She stopped walking and stared at me. “You really think so? You really think this is a serious threat?”

  “I really think that Richard Bentyne is an expensive piece of Network livestock on the hoof. Do I really think his life is in danger? No. Am I willing to risk his life and my career—and yours, too, if you think about it, on my opinion? Again, no. Am I willing to humor a paranoid TV genius who thinks I’d be better for him than a highly trained official Network bodyguard? Yes. At least for a little while. Why don’t you take me to him, and we can get on with it?”

  “Yeah,” she said. She took a long, green cigarette out of a cigarette case, stuck it in her mouth, and lit it in continued violation of at least fifty New York City health and fire codes. She sucked on it as if she were starving, and the cigarette her only form of sustenance. She let the smoke ooze out of her, instead of blowing it out. It made it seem as if her head were smoldering.

  “Yeah,” she said, “let’s do that.” Her voice and face were as dead as ever, but I thought I caught a flash of respect in her eyes. Some people see the rude as peers and the polite as suckers, and she was obviously one of them. I can play that game, but I don’t like it.

  She didn’t get a chance to lead me there. A production assistant, a young woman in thick glasses wearing a sweatsuit and a California Angels hat backward on her head over thick, straight brown hair, was frowning over her clipboard. She didn’t say anything, just sort of stood in the way.